A few more words on political correctness

In the darkness, place a studio light behind your model. You will get a silhouette like this one. Fill it up with whatever you like.

spirit of rocks

You can try different ideas, tell a different story.

spirit of dusk

I have a light personality, it is why I am not interested in doing dark, creepy photography even though it is more popular, marketable and straightforward. Even in the darkness there is light if you choose the light.

cave spirit

In my previous blog post on this topic, there is a portrait of a young girl.  It is an old portrait – now the girl is happily married, with a family.  At that time, at the age of fifteen, she had already lost her mother, and had been through trials that would have broken many grown up people. I call her ‘survivor’. She is beautiful inside and out, sweet soul, but she is also as tough as a rock. Life has tossed some opportunities her way, and she never missed one. Smart, hard working, young woman of integrity, she has built her life only relying on her own decisions. A very young mother, she has a child with disability.  Life isn’t getting any easier, but it is a busy and happy life anyway. We can decide how to feel about our life.

I know that not everyone can be as strong as this young woman, but many people just have to be strong. Last night I met an acquaintance, a former refugee from Syria, now an Irish citizen, a respectable family man and community member, fully assimilated into society. Life isn’t easy, but he is getting there, with a smile and good cheer. He would wave away any ‘political correctness’ like an annoying fly.

These two people who had a bad start in life used all the help they could get and built their new life from scratch. They never demanded a special treatment.

The government institutions can help you with material things. Your moral value is your own.  Compassion, tact, care, gratitude cannot be enforced.

Political correctness hurts both the sender and the receiver. It is a distrust, a doubt, a fear that keeps us from doing our best when we communicate with others. It is a myth of a Total truth that makes people reluctant to speak the Necessary Truth! Instead of reaching to each other, people avoid each other.

Now tell me – are these normal human relationships?

Political correctness is invented to hide the lack of moral value. Don’t take that bait, don’t swallow that poison. You have been manipulated, and your CHOICE of being a better person is stolen. I would say, this is a glimpse of the Zombie Apocalypse – people stripped of their identity and free will.

Growing up in the Eastern Block, I remember the term “political correctness” too well, and I know where it is leading.

Here are some unsolicited advice – partly photography-related 🙂

  1. Don’t stay in the darkness if you don’t want someone else to sneak into your head and stuff it up with labels, slogans and ready-made recipes. Don’t be a silly puppet.
  2. Live today. Learn from the past but don’t go back there. If the only light you have got is coming from behind, read #1.

Have a wonderful weekend!

115 comments

  1. Pingback: The Sunshine Blogger Award 2 | Chape Personal Trainer

  2. Spot on, Inese. In my living experience in Indonesia, political correctness also aimed to maintain specific regime and its power 😦

    Amazing images and editing! Wishing you a wonderful weekend 🙂

    1. Thank you so much for your comment, Indah! People are deceived because they ‘stay in the darkness’. Having the internet doesn’t help, unfortunately. People know so many useless things, but they miss crucial things. If they learned world history, they would quickly track the ‘political correctness’ term to the philosophy and ideology of the most oppressive regimes. They would realize that introducing such term is a first step of manipulation and control of the population.
      Wishing you a wonderful weekend! xx

  3. Those photos are stunning. You are a talented artist, my blogger friend. Thanks for the post.

    I am never sure what people mean when they use the term ‘political correctness’.
    If it means refusing to have a Christmas tree in your office where the majority of people celebrate Christmas, even though people of other religions are welcome to bring in artifacts that celebrate their own religious holidays — then that’s a crazy thing.

    If it means avoiding certain topics or individuals because we are not brave enough to engage with other people and even to ask them questions about their difference from us, then that’s a crazy thing.

    But I find that, so often, when someone decries ‘political correctness’ it’s a way of saying: “I am not allowed to hurt others verbally, and I should be free to do so. I should be free to say anything I want, about any individual or social group that I want, without having to suffer the consequences.”
    Such ideas make people careless towards each other, and even unkind. What is worse, that behaviour is often directed to those who are not powerful enough to hurt them back.

    I have reached the stage in life, after much suffering, to realize that kindness and consideration for our fellow-citizens doesn’t mean weakness, it means strength. It is so much easier to generalize, overlook and dismiss people than to try to understand.

    Thanks for sharing your perspective and allowing me to share mine. Sending you a big hug from Canada.

    1. Thank you so much for your comment, Cynthia! Kindness and consideration are the moral values we can master during all our life, and there will always be a room for improvement :). I can become a better person by doing something good every day, but I won’t become a better person if I only follow the rule of ‘political correctness’. It is exactly the generalizing you are talking about. There is no genuine care for an individual in it, no sincere interest, no joy of doing something good, no progress. Instead of teaching moral values to the society, our media prefers an easy way, introducing PC, one of the most faceless, soulless, indifferent, and cunning policies. Does it work? It sure does: people just stay away from each other because they don’t want to get in trouble. In theory, PC seems like a good idea, it is why so many nice people have been deceived. You probably don’t know the origins of this term 🙂 I can trace it back to Marx, and there is nothing moral in it.
      I would advise anyone to work on their moral values instead, and as you say, learn from their experience, especially suffering, to understand their fellow humans better, feel compassion, and know how to outstretch their helping hands when it is needed.
      Thank you again for your insight!
      Huge hugs from Ireland! 🙂

    1. Thank you so much! It saddens me a lot when I see cultured people who should have acted as educators, cowardly hide behind the PC. Authors are stuffing their novels with ‘minority’ characters to keep up with the latest trends. There are no such thing as ‘minority’! Human race, it is what we are, and from this point we should start.
      Thank you again for stopping by! 🙂

  7. Dear Inese, I nominated you for the 3- Day Quote Challenge. I totally understand if you don’t have the time to take the challenge. This was for me an opportunity to show to my blogger friends some blogs that I admire (and I admire your blog and your photos a lot). Best wishes! Mihaela

    1. Thank you so much Mihaela! I will do the quotes next week – this Friday I already have one nomination. Thank you indeed ! 🙂 Have a wonderful day tomorrow, inspired and happy!

  9. Agreed….political correctness may have started out with good intentions–to keep people from slinging cruel insults at others–but it has expanded into a kind of insanity at this point. People watch their words and don’t express their true opinions for fear of angering others, and this has made our communication very plastic and fake….

  12. I think political correctness has been misused or expropriated by people who have some ‘need’ to say sexist or racist things – it’s their defense when accused of their backwardness. Basically, we need to treat each other with respect – but if someone calls me a bitch, I’m not going to always let it go without discussion.

    1. Exactly, with respect, because we are respectful people, not because we are afraid of the law.
      There will always be someone who calls people names or says sexist and racist things. You can use a ‘weapon of your choice’ to deal with such people 🙂
      I am delighted to see many educational videos teaching moral values in a fun way. Hope for a better world for our grandchildren.

  15. Dear Inese, these a truly magnificent pictures!!! For me, it´s like they show us the dreams and wishes of the photographed individuals – like poetry transformed into a picture. Very inspirational work!:) Thank you so much for sharing them with us! Hugs, Sarah:)

  18. Sorry my comment went shooting off while I was still writing it.
    Basically, to say PC is a big barrier for anyone outside the so-calked box of ‘normal.’
    I think particularly here of people with disabilities and those who are grieving.
    Hopefully, the days of crossing the road in avoidance will soon be part of the past – a dark past.

    1. Oh yes, I agree. Speaking of people with disabilities – if it is still ‘allowed’ to call them so – they need friends, not confused strangers who are struggling with finding ‘right’ words. Society needs education rather than barbed wires of PC.

  19. Inese, what a powerful post. You have had me thinking about PC for the last day or two.

    It certainly does cause disconnect, especially between so calked

    1. Thank you John! Political correctness is another artificial creation that stifles not only creativity, but cultural exchange and relationships between the members of society. It is a toxic thing, a killer of morality, culture and humanity. It is cheap substitute for moral values.

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